from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york this is alison stewart. >> stewart: good evening, thanks for joining us. i'm alison stewart in for hari sreenivasan. there's a sign of progress in talks to rebuild the failing peace plan between russia and ukraine. leaders of germany and france are now planning what they call intensive talks in minsk on wednesday. they hope to create a new package of measures to stem fighting in eastern ukraine. the previous peace deal fell apart in september. before the minsk meeting, german chancellor angela merkel will sit down with president obama tomorrow. while there have been reports of a rift between the u.s. and its european allies over whether to arm ukrainian fighters. this morning, secretary of state john kerry said leaders are united in finding a diplomatic solution. >> president putin's got to make the decision to take an off ramp and we have to make it clear to him that we are absolutely committed to the sovereignty and integrity of ukraine no matter what. both european and ukrainian leaders are pushing for greater autonomy in eastern

from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york, alison stewart. this is pbs newshour weekend. >> stewart: good evening. i'm alison stewart. hari sreenivasan will be back next weekend. there has been another terror attack in europe. police in copenhagen, denmark, say a gunman fired dozens of bullets into a cafe killing one person and injuring three policemen. at the time, an event titled“ arts, blasphemy and freedom of expression” was being staged there. the event featured a well-known swedish artist and cartoonist who had been threatened during his career for his depictions of the prophet mohammad. the french ambassador to denmark was there but was uninjured. all this, a month after the terror attack in paris at the satirical magazine charlie hebdo left 12 people dead. police released this photo of the suspect, a man in his late the united states is reportedly stepping up arms shipments to jordan to help in the war against isis. jordan has been conducting air strikes against the islamic extremists since a jordanian pilot was burned alive. its munit

from the tisch wnet studios in lincoln center in new york, alison stewart. >> stewart: good evening. thanks for joining us. i'm alison stewart. hari sreenivasan is off. at a security conference today in munich germany, world leaders tried to find a way to end, or at least contain, the now- escalating 10-month conflict in eastern ukraine. this, as the united states and nato consider whether to send arms to the pro-western ukrainian government to help it thwart an offensive by pro- russian rebels. it's an idea that one of america's most reliable allies, germany, has resisted. >> i think the progress that ukraine needs cannot be achieved by more weapons. i really, really doubt that. i really doubt it. i can't stress it enough. >> stewart: and, russian foreign minister sergei lavrov warned the west against sending more arms. >> ( translated ): there are growing appeals in the west to support kiev's policy of militarisation, to pump ukraine full of lethal weapons and to bring it into nato. this will only exacerbate the tragedy of ukraine. >> stewart: but vice president joe biden responded

alison stewart from the northeast of england says "the message from earth is obvious -- help!"and conrad warns, "remember what hawking said about aliens coming to earth and comparing it to columbus coming to the americas? it did not end well for the natives." >> well let's go back to you shelia, off the back of that. first of all, is there anybody out there? i know we don't have a definitive answer, but i know you must have a view. >> i have an opinion, yes. i do believe that there are aliens in our solar system if not in outer space. but i'm not sure that they're intelligent. i think it might be microbial life that can exist in extreme conditions such as moons going around that or something like that, and they won't be able to say hello. >> oh, so hellos but completely out of any humanoid form. >> that's what i believe, yes. >> in which case, the next question has to be is there any point in trying to put out messages, then? >> at the end of the day, we don't really know what is outside of our solar system and the galaxy and stuff. if we do send out these shouts into the unive